(Or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation and Got What I Had All Along):
After we'd had to pull out of our camping jaunt at Bon Echo (36 hrs in), but before our toddler son's stomach flu became rather prolonged and worrisome (4 days), I allowed myself an indulgent thought:
Beyond the disappointment the family felt at having to suspend a vacation in the forest, in awe of Mazinaw Rock, I felt sadness and panic on a totally selfish level. I needed this time 'nearly-off-the-grid', in the presence of nature.
Most of my existence the rest of the year is full of deep engagement with the chatter of voices, the movement of data, the mediated experience. The time of the trains, the arrival and departure of deadlines, the formation and pursuit of goals.
Each camping season I eagerly soaked up some wondrous sight that transformed me and sustained me throughout the months of walking briskly on concrete and pecking with all speed at the keyboard. What would I do without it? All I had, really, was the glory of setting up camp and then tearing it down.
Before too long, sustained concern over the aforementioned stomach flu would eradicate all of this frivolous regret. But before it did, I was able to discover something as durable as any hour spent in contemplation of a natural wonder: the breath.
I've been paying more attention to the breath ever since my 30s brought me various mortal anxieties and existential challenges. I've spent hours with it in prayer and meditation. But I'd never understood it to be on par with any kind of sublime experience. Chalk it up to human nature: every now and then we like to try to see how the cart works when it's in front of the horse.
The breath is a remarkable mechanism, always doing its work and always willing to anchor us in the present moment. In that way, it is always magnificent. But the breath has an even better hand than that: without it, no other experience, sublime or mundane, is possible. It holds all the cards!
The breath. It's good. And I've got it right here, as I turn to my work.
